Magnum, 53 Degrees, Preston 03/12/2014

Magnum are never a band to rest on their laurels, so it came as no surprise when they opened up with ‘Live ’til You Die’ from their latest exceptional opus, ‘Escape From The Shadow Garden’. This was certainly a crowd pleaser as was ‘Black Skies’ and ‘Freedom Day’ taken from ‘The Visitation’,
‘Dance of the Black Tattoo’ also from ‘Escape FromThe Shadow Garden’ had the crowd going with Clarkins chugging guitar riff and ‘Blood Red Laughter’ kept the momentum going.

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‘Unwritten Sacrifice’ is tonight’s third track to be lifted from shadow garden and I thought that would be it, as Magnum eased into the second half of the set with ‘How Far Jerusalem’ and the astounding ‘Les Morts Dansant’, I never tire of hearing this track, truly inspired writing by Tony.
However ‘Falling for the Big Plan’ another new track from ‘Shadow Garden’ takes everybody by surprise before Magnum bring out the big guns with the very old ‘The Spirit’, the sing-a-long ‘All England’s Eyes’, the classic ‘Vigilante’ and the even older ‘Kingdom of Madness’ bring this set to a close.
The encore had to be the new single, ‘On Christmas Day’ written again by Tony Clarkin and found originally on the ‘Rock Art’ album released back in 1994 and re-recorded with the currant line up.

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The track is based on the well documented facts surrounding Christmas in 1914, the men in the trenches are said to have begun singing Christmas Carols and eventually they could be heard going back and forth between the trenches from both sides. Some documents state that on Christmas day a small amount of soldiers ventured in to ‘no man’s land’ where they exchanged food, cigarettes and souvenirs. There are some reports that a game of football was also played.”
The classic ‘Sacred Hour’ brings the evening to a close.
Another rock solid performance from Britain’s elder statesmen.

Setlist.magnum10

Live ’til You Die
Black Skies
Freedom Day
Dance of the Black Tattoo
Blood Red Laughter
Unwritten Sacrifice
How Far Jerusalem
Les Morts Dansant
Falling for the Big Plan
The Spirit
All England’s Eyes
Vigilante
Kingdom of Madness

Encore:
On Christmas Day
Sacred Hour

For further info on Magnum and the tour, please click HERE

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About David Farrell

General Manager and 'THE' competition guy at planetmosh.com. Manager of The Goddanm Electric www.thegde.co.uk, Tour manager for Serpentine, and ex-general Dogsbody at Hammerfest.co.uk. Media partner to numerous bands. Also takes photos, writes reviews and likes classic rock, with a touch of thrash to get the blood flowing.